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Civic Pride

Everyone knows that Philadelphia suffers from an inferiority complex. We look to New York and Washington and see what we once were and what we could have been. For a few fleeting decades, Philadelphia was the capital of the world. We were the Athens of the 18th century. We were the largest and most exciting city in the most radical corner of human civilization. The world’s greatest political minds gathered here to change the course of human history. Since then, not so much.

By the early 1800’s New York’s population passed Philadelphia’s. The federal government packed up shop around the same time, heading up to NY and eventually settling down in D.C.

How do we get over this loss? So far we haven’t. For more than 2 centuries, Philly has both prided and derided itself as a grungy little backwater. But I think we’re looking at this in entirely the wrong way. We compare ourselves to New York. That’s just stupid, and here’s my suggestion. Ask yourself this:

What’s worse than being the city between New York and Washington?

Being Baltimore.

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Remember them? Neither does anyone else. Baltimore was never anything to anybody. From a skyline that you might mistake for Wilmington Delaware to a murder rate that makes Philly look like Toronto, Baltimore is a place that we can proudly look down on.

If New York is the stud and Philadelphia is it’s scrappy, punch drunk uncle, then Baltimore is the neighborhood crack whore. Think about it. What does Baltimore have? Crabs.

Now while Baltimore does have a waterfront and an aquarium, Philadelphia has all those things that Baltimore doesn’t have beyond the waterfront and aquarium. We kick that shitown’s ass up and down I-95.

Nothing boosts the civic ego like looking down on someplace else. The problem is, when we look down on New York, we just look stupid. It’s time we picked on someone smaller and weaker. If Rocky fought Woody Allen instead of Apollo Creed, what do you think would have happened?

That’s all for now.